


Trip My Wire.

by jimthecurmudgeon



Category: Battle Royale - All Media Types, Battle Royale - Takami Koushun
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, No Smut, Underage Drinking, Underage Drug Use, mitsuko is her own warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25274644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jimthecurmudgeon/pseuds/jimthecurmudgeon
Summary: small-town monotony pushes three junior high students to make their own fun. yoshimi wants love. hirono wants to escape. mitsuko wants nothing in particular.
Relationships: Kuramoto Yoji/Yahagi Yoshimi (background), Shimizu Hirono & Yahagi Yoshimi, Shimizu Hirono/Souma Mitsuko, Yahagi Yoshimi & Souma Mitsuko
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Trip My Wire.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this when i was younger and edgier. enjoy

They met in junior high.

Shiroiwa was the kind of town you grew up in, and someday intended to escape. Suburbs, shops, schools, a subpar entertainment district, farmlands on the perimeter. Their school, which was mixed gender and certified ‘satisfactory’, had never produced anyone of note.

Monday Number One had been a simpler time. Mitsuko sat in front of Hirono during induction, and the back of her head made for something to stare at. She had nice hair — sleek, dark, wavy. Even after three days of the same, Hirono couldn’t figure out if those waves were natural. 

On Thursday morning, when Mitsuko slid into her seat after arriving late to class, she had a ring of bruises around the base of her neck. And, as creepy as it might’ve felt, it was impossible not to look at them. To stare, to wonder, and to imagine.

Hirono had been disturbed at first, then curious; had somebody choked Mitsuko? Why? Had she been beaten up? The hours passed by, and later, that evening, sitting in her bedroom with the radio at full volume, she still couldn’t shake the image: the girl with the purple fingerprints around her throat. 

They were gone the next day, either thanks to concealer or a superhuman healing ability. Hirono’s interest, however, was piqued.

Mitsuko came in with a split lip shortly after that, and while it would have made anyone else look a few degrees uglier, there was something sensual about the injury coupled with those strange dark eyes. As soon as as Hirono had processed the weirdness of that thought, she blinked, drew back, and scowled at the other girl in an attempt to set herself straight. Mitsuko didn’t seem to notice.

Later, as they were changing for gym class, Hirono heard Yukie Utsumi and her gang of toadies whispering:

“Do you think her father might be hitting her?”

“It could be her boyfriend. Some boys do stuff like that when they—“

“—at our age?!”

“Have you seen her? Just look! I bet she’s done it loads of times.”

A scandalised, “Yuka!” from one of the other girls ended the conversation, but Hirono couldn't help but wonder if Yuka Nakagawa was onto something.

At thirteen years old, as per the norm, Hirono herself had never had sex. She’d come close a few months prior; this guy she’d liked smuggled both her and a condom into his bedroom, but they’d been thwarted when his mother walked in inquiring after laundry. The memory still made Hirono’s nose wrinkle with embarrassment.

But if she could get that far, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Mitsuko Souma wasn’t a virgin.

The two of them exchanged words for the first time that afternoon. Out of the blue, Mitsuko turned around, rested an arm on Hirono’s desk, and asked her what her name was.

“What?”

Mitsuko smiled. Impish, mischeivous, and too wide for her face. Somehow, it still managed to be pretty. “So what is it?”

“Shimizu.”

A nod of understanding in response to that, but no introductions were made in return. “I like your hair,” she said instead.

Though it would’ve been the perfect opportunity to ask whether or not Mitsuko’s own hair was natural, Hirono’s mind had gone blank. Her stomach tensed, her hackles raised, her eyes narrowed. “Thanks.”

“How’re you liking school so far, Shimizu?”

“It’s school.” There was a pause, before Hirono bit the bullet and said, “What’s your deal, anyway?”

Mitsuko quirked an eyebrow. “‘My deal’?”

“Everyone’s saying you’ve been beat on by your dad, or your boyfriend, or whoever.” Hirono stabbed her thumb at that split lip to reinforce her point. “Like that. You’re not even going to try covering that shit up?”

The smile returned. “People talk about me?”

It occurred to Hirono that she might end up disliking Mitsuko Souma. There was something about her expression, her face, something queer, smug, and all-knowing. Something that said she knew exactly what her classmates had been saying, and that she liked it.

The image of purple bruises on white skin flashed through Hirono's mind again. “So it’s true.”

For a moment, it seemed that she wouldn’t get an answer. But then, after moving her arm and shifting back into her own space, Mitsuko said, “Some people are into that kind of thing, Shimizu.”

And so their friendship began.

Of course, whether or not it counted as ‘friendship’ was debatable. They’d begun having conversations before and during lessons; Hirono followed Mitsuko outside and sat with her during lunch; they walked home from school together. It took a while for their rapport to become natural, but eventually it did.

She could remember with strange clarity the first time the other girl made her laugh.

They were assigned to cleaning duty after school, and Yoshio Akamatsu, for whatever reason, had remained in the classroom too. He rootled around his desk, and, as per his pink and trembling jowls, the fact that he was alone with two girls hadn’t escaped his notice.

While they could have just ignored his presence and chatted, doing that felt somehow awkward. Hirono rolled her eyes, gritted her teeth, scrubbed at the blackboard, and hoped he’d catch the hint and leave. 

Mitsuko was less subtle. “I didn’t want to address the elephant in the room, but are you going to go home soon, Akamatsu?”

Fuck.

Soon enough, Hirono was being dragged out most every night on whatever adventure Mitsuko cooked up for them. They went to the houses of older friends to experiment with drink and drugs, then lounged around, out of their minds and giggling. They snuck into clubs and danced with people far older and more colourful than themselves, on and on, until Hirono’s newly acquired high heels made her feet hurt.

Her parents didn’t care. So long as she didn’t dip into their liquor cabinet or make too much noise when she came home, nothing was a problem. Hirono wasn’t sure if that made her very happy or very sad.

If one or both of them was too tired to go out, they’d go to Mitsuko’s instead. She lived with her aunt and uncle, and because they gave about as many shits as an old man with prostate cancer, the girls could do whatever they wanted. That was mostly just sitting out on the balcony, rolling and smoking the cigarettes that neither of them really knew how to assemble yet.

When she’d first stepped out onto the balcony, Hirono was frightened that the thing would snap clean off the side of the building. It was dirty corrugated metal, hanging at a slight decline, and the railings were far enough apart that you could slot your legs through them. The view was of the apartment opposite, with a vantage point into someone’s kitchen. Very scenic.

That was where they found themselves one Friday, after a bouncer had been immune enough to their charms to send them packing. They sat side by side, exhaling smoke like a pair of dragons, talking about any and everything.

“You know Yahagi?”

“Small? Mousy? Dumb as a post?”

“You got it.”

“What about her?”

“She looks different recently.” Mitsuko blew out a sloppy smoke ring, and the two of them watched it float off into the night. “Like, cuter.”

That made Hirono cough out a laugh. “All right, dyke. Good to know.”

Mitsuko laughed too. Then she said, “I want her to start hanging out with us.”

For some reason, that sent a pang of something through Hirono’s stomach. Her eyes flickered across and settled on the other girl’s face, ghostly in the darkness, before she brought her cigarette to her mouth and sucked on it. Exhaled. “Why?”

“Why not?”

“She’s just some girl,” said Hirono. “She’s — like, fucking come on — she’s cutesy. Just like all the other girls in this stupid town.”

Mitsuko just shrugged in response. She was fixated on the kitchen window opposite, behind which a man and a woman ate dinner by candlelight. An unwrapped box sat on the table between them, a bottle of wine on the countertop, and whatever the former was saying had the latter all a-smiling.

Thirty seconds passed by in silence, before Mitsuko stretched out, stood up, and leaned on the railing, “So let’s make her, like, our project,” she said, with one of those smiles that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Halloween pumpkin. “It’ll be fun.”

Though Hirono was unconvinced that it would be any kind of fun at all, she didn’t contest it. It was easier to let Mitsuko have her way than to argue. So she sighed, shrugged, and said, “Whatever you want.”

Mitsuko certainly got what she wanted. After being invited to join them at lunch, Yoshimi began trailing around after the pair of them like some great overgrown puppy. She was starstruck by their lifestyle, and Mitsuko seemed to find the naivety endearing; she walked her about with their arms linked, introducing her to the sorts of people, places, and narcotics she’d never dreamed of.

Hirono wasn’t so hands-on, but she came along for the ride all the same. The way Yoshimi treated her, as though she were the most grown-up and mature person she’d ever met, actually felt… nice.

Maybe Mitsuko was onto something with this one.

Time passed by, and even when the wide-eyed ingenue act wore off, Mitsuko didn’t kick Yoshimi to the curb like Hirono had expected her to. Sure, she’d stopped giving her so much attention (and continued treating her more like a pet than a person) but so long as the flow of compliments never ended, Yoshimi would always have a place on Mitsuko’s left side.

That autumn, Ryuhei Sasagawa asked Hirono out.

He came up to her at lunch and popped the question with as much dignity as a thirteen year old boy could muster, -- “Do you, uhh, want to get a milkshake with me after school, or somethin’?” — and she’d just glared at him till he sloped off back to his friends, disappointed.

Once Ryuhei had reached a safe distance, Yoshimi blinked at Hirono and said, “Why did you say no?”

When that didn’t merit any response save an eye-roll, Yoshimi pulled her legs up to her chin and began to hug them. “I wish someone would ask me out,” she said. “I’ve never even had a boyfriend before. It sucks.”

Mitsuko raised her eyebrows. “Oh, really?”

“Really,” said Yoshimi. “Boys never even talk to me. I don’t understa-and. Do you think they think I’m ugly? Or fat? What am I supposed to do? I’ll never get a boyfriend. I’m probably gonna end up being one of those crazy cat ladies, you know, like Miss Sato. What if I end up being a Miss Sato?”

(Miss Sato worked in the front office. She was renowned for her droning voice, dislike of boys, and monobrow.)

Hirono snorted out loud. “Shut up,” she said. “You’re just a baby. You’ve got years to find a boyfriend.”

That didn’t seem to be of any comfort at all, because the next thing Yoshimi said was, “I’m gonna be a virgin forever.”

And then Mitsuko just had to interject with, “You and Hirono both.”

“What?”

“Shut the fuck up,” said Hirono. “You don’t know anything, Mitsuko.”

“I know a lot of things,” Mitsuko replied, with an infuriating smirk. “Comes with not being a nun like you two.”

God, Hirono hated her. 

“So you’ve never done it either?” said Yoshimi, and Hirono had to clench her fists to prevent herself from lashing out. “Wow, really? You’re so — you know, you’re so mature. I thought I was so behind, but I guess if you haven’t—“

As the prattling went on, Hirono slipped her bag over her shoulder, got to her feet, and walked off. Even as Yoshimi called apologies and, “What did I say?”s after her, Hirono didn’t turn back around. She knew that if she did, she would only see Mitsuko’s awful smile. Those eyes. That challenge.

Hirono could never back down from a challenge.

That night, at thirteen years of age, she lost her virginity to one of the guys that she and Mitsuko slummed around with. She didn't know exactly how old he was, but she knew he must've been in high school. She liked his long hair, the roughness of his face, the way the angles of his body felt when they were pressed up against her own. Then, once they were shacked up in his bedroom, she found that she liked another part of his anatomy too.

It wasn't bad, as far as first times went. But even more satisfying than the sex was the thought that she was no longer a virgin, and that this boy would no doubt tell everyone he'd got laid. Mitsuko was bound to hear about it.

And hear about it she did.

“So,” she said the following evening, as the two of them sat on the balcony with their legs dangling over the side, passing a joint back and forth. “You and Goro?”

“Yeah.” Hirono had to fight to keep the triumph from her voice. “That happened.”

Mitsuko glanced across at her. She lingered there a while and then, when there was no elaboration, said, “How was it? He didn't hurt you, right? I thought he was pretty good.”

Of course she'd slept with him first. Of fucking course she had.

Hirono held the smoke in her lungs for a few moments, and then relaxed and passed the joint back. “It was fine,” she said. “I mean, he was fine.”

“Only 'fine'?”

“What, you think I'm a fucking dictionary?” She paused, and then rolled her eyes. “You want a play by play?”

That made the other girl smile. “Sure. Totally.”

“Pervert.”

“Totally,” Mitsuko said again, but there was less conviction in her tone this time. She sounded vague, almost detached, and there was a far away look in her eyes. Sometimes it was like she had her own world she could sink into on a whim. Then, “Did you do it because of what I said, or because you actually wanted to?”

A shiver ran up the base of Hirono's spine. She opened her mouth to speak, found that nothing would come out, swallowed, and managed, “What's that supposed to mean?”

There was a long silence as the two girls sat and, without words, dared one another to speak. Finally, the corner of Mitsuko's mouth twitched into something that was nearly a smile. She took a hit, blew out a mouthful of smoke, and said, “Nothing.”

From then on, she started to treat Hirono differently. It was subtle, and nobody but them noticed the shift in the relationship's dynamic, but everything had changed.

They'd begun to play a game.

One day, Mitsuko might bring up that she'd taken two pills in one night and, in retaliation, Hirono took three the next time they went out. No matter how long she stayed high, it was worth it because she'd won. A week or so later Hirono would mention that she'd made out with one guy while another felt her up, and next time they were at a club, Mitsuko made sure she was visibly sandwiched between a man and a *woman*.

The subject of prostituting themselves came up early one Saturday morning. They were sat in the car park of a supermarket, still drunk, staying out because they'd decided to watch the sunrise together.

Mitsuko said, “I'm going to try it out.”

“Have fun with that,” Hirono replied, and stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. “Try not to catch AIDs.”

“Thanks, Hiro. You’re always so supportive of my life choices.”

As way of a response, Hirono slung an arm around Mitsuko's shoulders, pulled her to rest on her side, and held her there. Though the display of affection left the other girl stiff at first, it didn't take her long to relax. She even made a sound of quiet contentment when Hirono began to stroke her hair.

“How about this,” said Hirono. “When you get murdered, I'll pretend like you were a good person when I sell your life story to the magazines.”

Mitsuko laughed. “Just make sure I look cute at my funeral,” she said. “Wouldn't want to be a trampy corpse.” And then her tone became more serious as she continued, “Really, though. It’s the easiest money ever.”

“If you say so, Mitsu.”

“There's this pair of shoes I've had my eye on forever,” Mitsuko went on. The sun had begun to come up on the eastern horizon, turning the sky pink as wine. “I don't think I could lift them, but if I could actually, like, pay...”

She trailed off at that. Then her hand came up, locked onto the one that Hirono had been pawing at her hair with, and brought both of them down to rest on her leg. They sat in silence awhile, tangled together, before Mitsuko said, “Atsuya promised he'd set me up if I asked.”

“You want me to do it with you?”

Hirono felt Mitsuko begin to shift in her arms, as though she were trying to look up and better gauge her expression. “Yeah, I mean,” Hirono continued, after a pause, “fuck it. I'll do it. It's not a big deal.”

“You don't think?”

“No.”

Mitsuko made a humming sound. “Everyone sells themselves, you know. Really.” She ran her thumb over the back of the other girl’s hands. “Salarymen who never go home. Like, idols – their whole purpose in life is to make other people less bored, isn’t it? What's the difference between us and them other than, like, how much we get paid?”

All of a sudden, Hirono wanted nothing more than to untangle herself and go be alone. Hide away in her room, hold her arms over her head, and wish she was living somewhere, anywhere, else. “That's dumb,” she said. “You're not even thinking about the sex part.”

“Who even cares about sex? Like you said, it's not a big deal.”

“Holy shit,” said Hirono, and squeezed the other girl's hand so hard her knuckles went white. “You are such a hypocrite. Back before I slept with Goro, you made it sound like it was the most important thing in the damn world. Like me being a virgin was something to be ashamed of.”

Mitsuko responded to having her hand crushed by huddling in even closer. Her hair smelled like violets and cigarette smoke. “I mean having it isn't a big deal,” she said. “It's natural. Nature, and whatever. It's the reason everyone's alive right now, but you can't even find a porno that doesn't have the dick blurred out – what's even with that? Why does everyone act like it's some big moral… fucking… thing?”

“Your'e still drunk. Stop trying to be some kind of fucking poet, idiot.”

But sure enough, the two of them had gone to Atsuya and he'd hooked them up as they asked. They'd ended up in a love hotel with two salarymen who must've been in their thirties or forties.

As she led her trick in the direction of their room (booked for an hour), Hirono glanced over her shoulder just in time to catch Mitsuko winding her fingers into her own salaryman's shirt. She pulled him into their room with that same playful laugh Hirono had thought was reserved only for her. Or not. Apparently, every aspect of Mitsuko Souma was for sale.

They'd met up outside after the hour was up, their makeup smeared and with wads of cash in hand. Though Hirono was more inclined to go home and take a bath than to celebrate, Mitsuko's wild-eyed giggling turned out to be contagious. With the fluorescent lighting of the hotel reflected in their eyes, the two girls – both of whom had long since forgotten they were only fourteen years old – clung onto each other and laughed so hard it hurt.

Mitsuko hadn't ended up buying those shoes she'd supposedly had her eye on. In retrospect, Hirono wasn't sure they'd even existed.

Perhaps her own growing nihilism was why she didn't intervene when it was suggested that Yoshimi might try prostitution too. Mitsuko was careful to emphasise the amount of money they made in an hour, comparing it to how much one might expect for sixty minutes on minimum wage. She didn't bother to mention how unclean you could feel afterwards, or how worthless, or how cheap, and perhaps that was because she herself hadn't experienced those feelings. Perhaps she just didn't feel anything at all.

Yoshimi didn’t take long to give in.

“You're so lucky,” said Mitsuko, reaching out to give her a pat on the upper arm. Hirono stood and watched, hands in her pockets, wondering whether or not to step in. “It'll be your first time, right? You'll make so much extra money for that.”

“And it's really okay?” Yoshimi asked. Even as she spoke, she chewed her bottom lip. “You promise?”

Mitsuko smiled that awful smile of hers. “I promise,” she said. “I'll look out for you.”

Although that seemed to comfort Yoshimi more than it should have done, her eyes still wandered over to Hirono in search of further reassurance. “You think so too, Hiro? That it's, you know… okay?”

Images of naked old men, grasping hands, and greedy faces played through Hirono's mind like a movie. The sight of the unspoiled child in front of her was nauseating.

So she said, “Yeah.” A pause. “Don't make a big deal out of it.”

The first time proved harder on Yoshimi than the other two, but the loss of her virginity, if nothing else, seemed to toughen her up. That, Hirono thought, was a good thing. Right?

By October, the trio were making good money. Their schoolmates were no longer of any interest to them, because, no matter their youth, they no longer considered themselves to be children.

The following weeks passed by just as the ones before them had, with the sole difference being that Mitsuko grew distant. She was less interested in playing hate games with Hirono, less involved, and it soon became clear that even Yoshimi’s worship had grown stale.

To her credit, Hirono was good at pretending not to be bothered by the change. She still had her crew of older friends, so whenever Mitsuko shrugged her off, Hirono spent time with them instead. Yoshimi usually tagged along too. To Hirono’s surprise, the other girl was becoming less of an annoyance and more of a friend.

They were sat in Yoshimi’s bedroom one night, some silly pop band on the radio, and the conversation came round to their absent friend.

“It’s like she’s bored of us,” Yoshimi said. She was nursing a can of diet soda in her lap as though it were a baby. “Do you think she’s bored of us?” 

“Probably.”

“Are you okay with that?”

Rather than replying, Hirono allowed the music to wash over her. It wasn’t to her taste, but it was still infinitely preferable to pouring her heart out over Mitsuko Souma of all people.

“I miss her…”

“I don’t.”

“You do,” Yoshimi insisted. She tilted her head to the side to better take Hirono on. “You two were so close. I know… like, um, I know I kind of annoy her sometimes, but that’s okay, and I wish she’d still talk to you. You were like sisters.”

Sisters. That made Hirono smirk.

She’d just opened her mouth to say something, when, in the most remarkable occurance of ‘speak of the devil’, there came a rap on the window.

The two girls went silent. There was a pause, before Hirono got to her feet and went to open it up: there, wearing long-sleeved crop top, skirt, and a grin, was none other than Mitsuko herself. She had a messenger bag slung over her shoulders.

“Nice night out,” she said. Then she hoisted herself up onto the windowsill, proceeding to climb into the house in the least graceful manner imaginable. She reeked of alcohol. “Not interrupting something, am I?”

“Yeah,” said Hirono. “We were just about to have a pillow fight.”

“Room for a third?”

“You wish.”

Sliding off the bag as she went — it clinked as it hit the carpet — Mitsuko crossed the room to sit beside Yoshimi on the bed. She put an arm around her shoulders, and began to play with the fabric of her shirt.

Yoshimi flushed. “Hi, Mitsu.”

“Hi, Yoshi,” Mitsuko replied. She looked over at their other companion. “Hi, Hiro.”

“Hi yourself.” Hirono lifted up the flap of the messenger bag to take a look inside, and her eyebrows shot up. “Where the fuck did you get all this?”

Mitsuko’s smile widened. “Okay, so,” she said. “Right now, I am rich as…” she waved her hand, unable to think of an appropriate simile.

“—bitch?” Yoshimi put in helpfully, and Mitsuko laughed.

“Sure,” she said. “I just made 35,000 yen off some old creep. And because I love you both so much, I decided to come share.”

Even as Mitsuko spoke, Hirono was uncapping a bottle of rum and pouring it into an empty mug. She took a draft, shuddered at the taste, and then passed it over to Yoshimi (who was looking at Mitsuko as though she’d announced the cure for cancer).

“You’re so cool,” Yoshimi said, and downed the remnants. She was promptly given a refill. “I didn’t think you wanted to hang around us anymore.”

Mitsuko mock-gasped. It didn’t escape Hirono’s notice that she was still toying with Yoshimi’s shirt. A pang of something ran through her stomach. Rather than think about it, or worry about the symptom’s meaning, she took a swig straight from the bottle and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Don’t ever worry about that,” said Mitsuko. “You’re still my two favourite people ev-er.”

“That I can believe,” Hirono replied. Funnily enough, despite everything, she realised that she was smiling. Maybe she’d been more concerned about Mitsuko’s behaviour than she’d wanted to admit. “We are pretty fucking awesome.”

Their eyes met across the room and locked in a stare. Dark on darker.

Then Yoshimi was over by the stereo, and she was insisting that they play some bootleg cassette she’d found at a flea market a few weeks back. Before Hirono knew what was happening, some Western woman was proclaiming them all ‘Kids in America’, and though that couldn’t have been less true, the three fo them danced all the same. 

Yoshimi collapsed to the floor after a few songs, out of breath, but the other two had better stamina. As Lenny Kravitz enquired, “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” they pressed up against each other and laughed like children, drunk, swaying from side to side as one, horrifically out of time to the music. It didn't matter, though. At least they were having fun for once.

When Mitsuko was in that kind of mood, it was easy to forget who — or what — she really was.

Months later, when Hirono heard that a girl Mitsuko didn’t like was run over by one of Mitsuko’s many boyfriends, it was the memory of that night that led her to make excuses. The guy could’ve done it of his own initiative, or maybe the girl who got hit deserved it, or perhaps Mitsuko just didn’t know better and couldn’t be held accountable. Who cared? It wasn’t like the bitch died, or anything.

Their previous closeness was rekindled. Though the game was put to rest (Mitsuko had found better and more daring playmates) there was a new intimacy to their relationship that hadn’t been present before. While they’d always done business separately, Mitsuko suggested that they offer themselves as a package deal to make more money. And so, they began fucking clients together. Sometimes.

It was awkward at first, but Hirono grew used to the sight of her friend naked. She knew that Mitsuko wasn’t discriminative when it came to the gender of her partners, but Hirono herself had never been interested in other girls; there was something about hard lines, stubble, and thin lips that screamed sex to her, in a way that a woman’s softness did not.

Perhaps that was why, when Mitsuko leaned forward and kissed her over their john’s heaving body, she was surprised to find that she… didn’t mind it.

Not that she’d ever admit that, of course.

As the two of them walked home from that particular encounter, Hirono said, “If you’ve given me herpes, I’ll fucking kill you,” and was rewarded with a smirk in response.

(That was almost a pity. If Mitsuko had been on her usual game, she would’ve stood on tiptoe to kiss her again and said, “Now it’s twice as likely. You’re welcome.”)

They just never spoke about it. Even when Yoshimi started dating that loser Yoji Kuramoto and trailed around after him instead of them, they steered clear of the topic. There were other things to talk about, like how much Mitsuko hated Kuramoto, and how shitty Shiroiwa was, and how they mistrusted most everyone.

But eventually, it all grew too much. They were sat out on Mitsuko's balcony one night, for once sans any kind of narcotic, and Hirono burst out with, “Do you like me?”

Shit.

Though Mitsuko's expression remained listless, the corner of her lip had turned slightly upwards. She didn't say anything, staring out into the street, eyes fixed on the window across from them. The empty kitchen. And then she replied, “Is this your attempt at hitting on me?”

“No,” said Hirono, but it was too fast. The other girl shot her an amused look, and Hirono had to turn away to stop herself snapping and saying something she'd regret. Hell, actually— “No way, you don’t get to turn this around. You were the one who kissed me.”

“When we were working?”

“Yeah. When else?”

Mitsuko sighed, as though someone confessing they liked her was the most inconvenient thing to happen all day. Which, being her, it very well could have been. “I didn’t think you’d make such a big deal about it. I didn’t think you’d get hooked on me, or whatever this is.”

Only it’s not just that, Hirono wanted to say. It’s everything. Everything they’d been through, and said, and done.

But she couldn’t.

So she gritted her teeth and fixed her hands in fists around the railings, imagining they were Mitsuko’s throat. Squeezing. Twisting. Throttling that damn smirk off her face. “Forget it,” she said. “Doesn’t matter. Just wanted to make sure we were... thinking the same things, I guess.”

“Sure,” said Mitsuko. “We might be.”

“What?”

Hirono felt a hand on her arm, and turned her head just in time to catch a glimpse of Mitsuko’s eyes before their lips met. The position was awkward, their mouths dry and chapped, and the wind had blown a lock of wavy hair in the way, but the kiss sent a jolt of lightning through Hirono all the same. They pulled apart after only a few moments.

“Gosh,” Mitsuko said. She grinned, impish and awful. “That sucked.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Fuck you too.”

“Fuck you, Mitsuko.”

“Bet you want to.”

Hirono shrugged. Part of her wanted nothing more, but the logical part of her brain didn't want to give Mitsuko the satisfaction. It wasn't unlikely that this was a new game, and should she agree to the suggestion, Mitsuko would laugh herself silly and tell everyone Hirono was gay. That, or — given her pre-established heterosexuality — she thought enough of Mitsuko to sleep with her despite her sexual preference. Both options were unthinkable.

But then Mitsuko touched her cheek and drew her in again, and when this time proved better than the first, Hirono’s decision was made for her. She was doing this. Fuck the consequences, fuck the future, fuck everything.

And yet when she was dragged into Mitsuko’s bedroom, laughter echoing in her ears, she remembered a similar scene: that first time in the love hotel, and the way that Mitsuko had giggled as she pulled her man by the shirt into their room.

The sex made up for it, Hirono supposed. It did turn out to be some pretty great sex.

That particular episode occurred in March. The following two and a half months went by in a blur of something that was more than friendship, but far from love. A climax to their sordid tale, Hirono supposed, but she wasn’t sure where things could go next. The thought of starting a relationship was laughable. With that in mind, surely their next step could only be stagnancy, a friendship-ending argument, or, well, death.

It was the night before that fateful class trip. They lay side by side on Mitsuko’s futon and stared at the ceiling; Hirono wore a t-shirt, and Mitsuko, who was smoking, wore nothing at all. Neither of them had spoken in a while.

“I don’t want to grow up,” said Hirono, finally. When she was answered only by the buzz of the fan in the corner, she exhaled and repeated, “I never want to grow up.”

“Why not?” 

“I’ll have to get a job.”

Mitsuko sighed, stubbed out her cigarette, and rolled onto her side so as to see the other girl better. “Sure,” she said. “You might.”

“Or I’ll have to get married.” Though she was aware of Mitsuko’s movement, Hirono remained on her back. There were rings of damp on the ceiling, visible even by the light of the candles they’d lit and scattered, and she was hypnotised by them. “Get a house. Pop out some kids. End up like my parents.”

There was a pause, so Mitsuko said, “Sure,” to fill it.

Hirono turned over to face her. Cheek down on the mattress, the two of them stared at each other. “We can’t live like this forever,” said Hirono. “Drugs will only fuck our brains up and make us dumb. So we're never smart enough to leave this backwards town. And the smoking — you know, if we don’t quit, it’s gonna give us lung cancer. There’s no point in doing the job, the husband, the whatever, ultimately, because we’re only going to end up as two gross, decrepit corpses, in an old people’s home somewhere.”

“Guess we can only pray we die young and pretty, then.”

And Hirono laughed. She laughed long and hard. Mitsuko’s face split into that wicked smile too, though she didn’t make a sound. Maybe she didn’t know why she was smiling. She just watched her friend, drank her in, took pleasure in her emotion.

When the fit of mirth was complete, Mitsuko reached out and ran her fingertips down Hirono’s cheek. Her nails left thin red marks behind. “Well,” she said, “if you ever feel like a suicide pact, you know who to call.”

“Back at you, you fucking creep,” said Hirono. “Any time.”


End file.
